Summer’s over and here comes the fall semester, where hundreds of students from all over the world settle down in a new place where they will soon call home.

INTO Marshall University offers courses from academic English, general English, undergraduate pathway, to graduate pathway programs designed for international students who are desiring to improve their English language.

Kenny Jones, a student engagement coordinator at INTO Marshall, said, “Every semester I am invigorated, exhilarated, excited and other big words I’d like to use to show my excitement.”

Jones said one of his passions is meeting new students as it allows him to learn new things from students coming from different cultures.

In this fall semester there are about 225 new students enrolled in the program.

Jones said fall is usually the biggest where they have the most students coming in, while in spring and summer it’s about 100 students per semester.

Currently with around 350-380 students from three major countries: India, China and Saudi Arabia, Jones said they are still growing.

Students also come from countries like South Korea, Japan, Columbia and Pakistan.

First-year student at INTO Salman Ul Haq from Pakistan whose mother tongue is Urdu, a language derived from Hindi, said he hopes to improve his accent in speaking English by the end of the program.

He said that being in the program allows him to meet different people from different countries and so far he has made friends from India, China and Japan.

As the student engagement coordinator, Jones does programs and events allowing students to interact with each other.

In these programs and events, students are given the opportunity to meet friends from other cultures thus allowing cross cultural interaction where they get to practice their English.

Another outlet the students at INTO are given to practice conversational English is the Conversation Partners Program, where international students are paired with American students.

When asked how they handle such a large amount of students at orientation, Jones said their 25 student ambassadors from different countries are enormous assets as they are able to speak different languages. They can translate things for students if they are having a hard time understanding.

“All of our students speak English very well even though they don’t think they do, they just got to overcome the fear,” Jones said.

Kessyl Lim can be contacted at [email protected].